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To add, the '69 Mets was one of the best clutch teams I've ever seen play in my lifetime. I mean if they needed a strikeout or a clutch hit they got it.

On May 27, they were 18-23. The rest of the way they went 82-39!!!!

Again, the key was incredible starting pitching whether it be Tom Terrific, Koos, Gary Gentry, Jim McAndrew, Don Cardwell, and a 22 year old Nolan Ryan. The BP was anchored by the deadly RP Tug McGraw and Ron Taylor. Most of the time they exceeded expectations.

The everyday players were really a bunch of guys that seemed to play above their abilities.

Players like Wayne Garrett, Bobby Heise, Al Weis, Ed Charles, J.C. Martin, Bobby Pfeil and others - a bunch of average guys at best playing their defined roles to perfection. It was uncanny and amazing from a group of guys who had previously been ignored for the most part.

From 1962 - 1968, the team had five 10th (last) place finishes and two 9th place finishes. So what happened came as a shock to the ENTIRE baseball world.......

Bottom line (but, you've heard it before)......Pitching, pitching, pitching and more pitching, exceptional defense and clutch hitting will always win.

I know, I don't think I was having a debate with them, though, more so they were adding to what I was saying.

My point being that when the Mets are ready to compete in a few years, it will be the pitching that carries them, much like the 1969 Mets pitchers did.

Also, because FoC was saying that the Mets don't have many "cornerstone players", I wanted to add that neither did the Miracle Mets (position players, anyway).

Both Cleon Jones and Tommie Agee had pretty elite seasons in 1969, though for Jones it was a career year, and for Agee some of his value was in elite defense, which maybe wasn't fully appreciated at the time. So it was mostly pitching, but not all pitching. You still had two position players with 6+ fWAR seasons (edit: actually it's 5.5+ WAR seasons; I grabbed these off a graph which apparently rounded some up to 6).